Amazon’s subsidiary Junglee.com to sell used goods now

The portal expects to gain a lead by providing pick, pack and delivery services for merchants, a feature that it claims will help differentiate it from rivals.BENGALURU: Online retailer Amazon, which has been testing a service to allow merchants to sell used goods on its subsidiary Junglee.com, aims to formally launch the service in a few weeks, extending the reach of the shopping services site to a market where classified listing portals are vying for supremacy.

Junglee — a comparison shopping site that served as the launch pad for the Indian operations of Amazon four years ago — has been testing the concept for sale of used goods by merchants on its website since last July. The portal expects to gain a lead by providing pick, pack and delivery services for merchants, a feature that it claims will help differentiate it from rivals.

“Junglee will also promote sale of first-hand goods from small sellers who may not have the scale to list on larger marketplaces and may want to limit their business to one city,” said a spokesperson for Junglee-.com.

Mahendra Nerurkar, General Manager at Junglee will lead this initiative for the company, which is locked in a fierce battle with rivals like Flipkart, Snapdeal for leadership of India’s online retail market, estimated to be worth $36 billion in fiscal 2017 according to Goldman Sachs. The investment bank forecast digital advertisement spend to grow to $15 billion by fiscal 2030 from $0.5 billion at present driven by the shift from offline advertising to online with mobile and social media being the largest contributors.

“Junglee is the only online marketplace in India which enables customers to buy new and used products from all types of sellers including individuals, home-entrepreneurs and micro-businesses,” said a company representative.